GazOutdoors poll: About snow and elk hunting

Each week this big game season, we’ve been told that the elk
harvest is lagging because of a lack of deep snow in the high
country.

To me, snow has always been a mixed blessing. If you get a lot
of snow and cold, elk migrate out of the backcountry to more
accessible winter ranges at lower elevations. But a lot of snow
also means hunters are limited in their ability to penetrate the
mountains by foot, horseback or vehicle because of the heavy
snowpack.

What do you think? In this week’s GazOutdoors.com poll, let’s
ask: “How important is deep snow to you for a successful elk hunt?”
We’ll offer an array of answers. Please explain with a comment on
this blog post.

No doubt about it, rifle hunters have little interest in
abandoning lead bullets despite a CDC report out of North Dakota
that deer eaters showed higher levels of lead in their blood than
non-deer eaters.

In last week’s GazOutdoors.com poll, we asked, “In light of
recent studies on lead found in big game meat and increased lead
levels in the blood of people who eat that meat, do you plan to
move away from rifle bullets with lead in them in the future?”

A total of 84 percent (58 votes) said no, they have no plans to
change while 16 percent (11 votes) said they did plan to change.
Some of the posted comments were very interesting.

RE wrote, “I realize that someone has made the statement that
our personal lead levels have gone up but I doubt that it is from
the wild game we have eaten. I will continue to take my game with
lead bullets and not be stampeded by a bunch of ‘chicken
littles’.”

Billy wrote, “People can deny results that they do not like but
that does not make the results invalid. Lead studies have not been
done on hunters until recently and I for one will be hunting with
copper bullets from now on, why take the chance?”

And Dave Salys noted, “I always get suspicious when stories like
this come out. Could it be a really back door way to curtail
hunting? …All that ammo and reloading supplies you have saved up
would now be outlawed. Remember lead shot?”

Ah, the memory of lead shot being outlawed for waterfowl
hunting. It made for some changes and changes still seem to be
coming annually with new, more expensive, non-lead shotgun shell
loads. The change for rifle hunters would be huge. – Mark Henckel,
Gazette Outdoor Editor

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